Install Fusion 360 on external drive

[nanozeit]

Hi, 

I am teaching a class in which my students will use Fusion 360 for some of their work. The students check out computers (Mac laptops) to do their work, but cannot install new software on the computers. The computers are restored to a default image state every time they are rebooted and this image is only updated (typically) once a year so it it not possible to add Fusion 360 to the current disk image. I had suggested that the students bring in external drives to use for media and application storage. This works for well in many cases, but I'm concerned (after looking into the installation details of Fusion 360) that this may not work in this case. I can't find any good answer to this in the forums. It's been a while since I did my own installation so I don't recall what options were available. Is it possible to just move the application (and dependencies) to an external drive? I hope someone can provide guidance so that my students can get started using this software right away. 

Thanks,

Byron

[Phil.E]

I will ask about the external drive, but I doubt it will work.

What about installing Fusion 360 and just using it?

• On a fast network, it takes a couple minutes or less.
• The students have all their designs in the cloud so they won't lose any work. 
• These are Macs, so they probably don't need a reboot very often. (I reboot mine once a month for good measure).

Just an idea.

Thanks,

[nanozeit]

Thanks for the creative suggestion. I will test this out tomorrow to see how long it takes to do this. Our networks are often good, but sometimes very overloaded.

Even though the computers may not need rebooting very often, the individual students only have any specific computer for relatively short times, so they probably would need to do this every time they wanted to use the program. It might work though. This is only part of their work. They are also doing electronics, programming, etc. 

I'm still interested in hearing other ideas that would not require the repeated download and intallation. 

I'll push to get this in our next installation cycle so it won't be an issue next semester.

Thanks again!

Byron

[Phil.E]

The students could also run Fusion on their own computers, if they have any.

Please let us know how long it takes to install Fusion 360 in your environment.

Thanks,

[Phil.E]

Byron,

When is the next opportunity to refresh the computer image and install Fusion 360?

Thanks,

Phil

[nanozeit]

Hi Phil,

I had to deal with some other unrelated computer issues this last day and half (almost resolved), so I haven't had a chance to test this install process yet. I will probably not get to this until Monday now. It will actually be important for me to try in with a group of students during normal (busy) network times to see how it goes. I could potentially try it on a Friday afternoon, but especially this early in the semester it would not be a fair test.

For the students with their own computers, which is a reasonable percentage, this shouldn't be an issue. I've already suggested they install the software on their own systems. I just don't want it to be too cumbersome for the other students to use the same software. I know it doesn't take much friction to keep some of them from using a piece of software or other tools. Hopefully it will prove to be fairly painless and quick to download and install on an ad hoc basis. 

Thanks again for the support!

Byron

[Phil.E]

When it's time to create your image again, let us know please. Let's make sure it works for your students!

Thanks,

[nanozeit · Accepted solution]

Thanks Phil. 

It seems like the process of downloaded and installing the software as needed will get us through the semester. I'm seeing if we can get it install on a few computers where it can live permanantly for the semester. I'll check in with you when we get ready to create the next round of computer images for next year. I'm concerned that we may run into some problems if the software can't be regularly updated, especially since it seems to be in such a rapid development cycle now. 

Thanks again for your support. I wil mark this as resolved.

Best,

Byron